Ramsey Electronics PG13 Instruction Manual page 40

Conductive Glass
If you've always thought glass was a good insulator, guess again! When
glass gets good and hot, it becomes more and more conductive. There are
several ways to test this, but here is the best one I have seen.
What you will need:
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Glass rod (1/4 inch diameter).
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Some wire.
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Two nails
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Something to hold the two nails in place that is non-conductive.
What to do:
1. Turn off the power.
2. Use the wire and nails to make a rudimentary spark gap in the air.
Connect one nail to ground, the other to the HV. Make the gap about 1/2".
3. Turn on the power to make sure your spark gap sparks.
4. Holding the glass rod in the arc, slightly to the top of it, use the arc to
heat the glass.
5. After a bit of time, the glass will heat, and then suddenly the arc will go
through the glass rather than around it.
This shows why you do not want to lean any objects on your light bulb
plasma display. The glass will become hot enough to melt, and then regular
air will get inside and ruin the effect.
CD Burner
This is fun to do on those useless, scratched CDs. Balance a CD on the top
terminal, then draw an arc over to the metal layer. Soon you will see the arc
"eating" away the conductive data layer. To improve performance shorten the
distance the arc needs to go by placing a piece of wire in the blank area.
You will notice an effect called "carbon tracing". This happens when an arc
actually oxidizes the material it is near, causing it to break down and become
carbonized. This carbonized material becomes somewhat conductive causing
plenty of strange effects, but mostly does nasty things we don't want.
Just be careful with these experiments since it is easy to set things on
fire!
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PG13 40